Embrace the Ordinary vol. 5

““Things don’t have to be extraordinary to be beautiful. Even the ordinary can be beautiful.”
― Wicker Park

In so many ways, this week was anything but ordinary. The kids were in a play, so I spent 3 hours of every day driving them back and forth to rehearsal, because of course there were separate rehearsal times based on casting, and they didn’t all have to be at rehearsal for the full time every day. It was a lot of driving. Not to mention the play itself! That was pretty extraordinary, because of all my kids, I would have only pegged Little Man to be interested, since he’s the chattiest, most animated kiddo around here.

Yesterday afternoon, in the quiet house with the youngest boys, Mr. S and I baked. He is always the most excited and willing to help in the kitchen, so this was a great time for some one-on-one time with him. He chose a sugar cookie recipe I’d saved on Pinterest, so we started whipping up a mess batch of cookies.

No matter how hard I try, I can never make a lovely mise en place  happen in my kitchen. It’s pretty much always chaos. At least most of the things on the counter were for the recipe, aside from the whisk attachment and toothbrush I snagged from Firecracker.

We measured and mixed, and tasted a lot of cookie dough. We made some adjustments. The recipe didn’t call for vanilla extract, and we added it. Such a subtle, but good difference. Always add vanilla. We rolled balls, and smashed them down with a sugar-coated glass. We baked. We made icing. We iced cookies. It was good.

Sure, we made another huge mess in the kitchen–nothing new there. I always manage to make a mess, no matter how hard to try to clean as a I go and keep it simple. We cleaned up. It was a good time. It was a perfect, beautiful time spent with my top sous chef. He’s had a rough several weeks (age? Feeling left out? Who knows. He’s just been in a funk.), and this was much-needed reconnection time.

This week, Theresa from Ordinary Lovely is co-hosting the link-up with me!

She’s been sharing her ordinary moments and how she embraces them since I started. I love her take on life, her candid stories, her heartfelt posts. She        recently shared about a conversation she with with one of her kids, about a mother’s love. Her current Embrace the Ordinary post is here, where she shares “These are the moments that knit our family…”

Thanks so much for co-hosting, Theresa!

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